Across the Universe
by Built on the Horizon
Summary: Rose doesn't wear black to the funeral. Apparently "Wont regenerate" doesn't mean "Live to a ripe old age"
1. Chapter 1

Everyone stands back from her as the casket is lowered into the ground, like they're scared she's going to jump in after him and they don't want the responsibility of catching her.

She's the only one there not wearing black. Jeans, shirt, blue jacket. Same old, same old. It's really not dark and gloomy today, if anything, it's sunnier than usual.

The sky's sunny, she's sunny. She thinks he would have liked that.

Her fingers clench into fists into her pockets just so her hands won't tremble.

No one will hold her hand. Not her friends, who mean well, but know how she'll react to the loss and know she needs space, not her family, who haven't touched her in three days like she's contagious.

He's gone.

Forever.

Apparently, 'Wont regenerate" doesn't mean "Live to a ripe old age". Time Lord and Human DNA were never meant to mix like that.

After it finished, Rose turned and began to walk. She just kept on walking, for hours, until she's deep in the city and utterly lost.

She wakes up from her trance and finds herself standing outside a chemist, people staring at her red eyes. She feels a whisper brushing past and her palm itches before she ducks into the shop beside her.

She doesn't say a word in there; she just finds what she needs and pockets it, ducking out the doors quickly. People see it, but she's young and red faced from crying. No one stops her.

* * *

She doesn't know how her father found her, but he pulled up next to her on the old road, leaving the engine running and opening the door for her.

She's sitting in the passenger seat and feels Pete's weighted gaze on her for a long time before the car starts.

Rose resists the urge to snap at him.

* * *

_This is when you're supposed to break down_. She thinks as her father leads her up to her room and sits her on her bed. Tony is crying next door and Jackie has the television blaring, but as soon as the bedroom door closes, silence is all she can hear.

But no tears come right now.

The room still smells of him. A blue suit jacket is hanging in the closet, just peeking through the door from when someone went through her room, hiding all reference to him, trying to make it as though he never existed. A picture on the nightstand is the only other thing she can see of him. He's done up in a black suit and she's wearing a white gown and Tony is looking adorable as the ring bearer. He proposed to her in this classy restaurant, even when he knew his cells were breaking down.

The photo is only a month old.

'Do you want anything?' Pete asks.

_I want the Doctor back._

'I'm just going to toast a sandwich. I can make one for you if you'd like.'

_The Doctor. I want the Doctor._

'I'm not hungry.' She croaks. That's true, at least.

The door slams after he leaves by accident. He had opened a window to let some air in, and the wind catches the door as it closes, but when it does, it cuts through her like a jolt of electricity and she wakes up from another trance. She begins to notice things she didn't notice from before.

A box of tissues beside the photo frame.

A hot water bottle on the bed beside her.

A blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

And the pregnancy test she'd slipped into her pocket placed on her lap.

**_G'day all! What do you think? Is it worth continuing? It was going to be a oneshot, but now I have a few ideas about it. Tell me what you think! Please review! Any better ideas for a title greatly appreciated!_**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

How do you begin to grieve someone you've lost so many times already? Where do you even start?

With heart-stopping guilt that she felt when he was consumed by the Reapers and it was all her fault.

With confusion and fear when her first Doctor exploded into light and heat and transformed into her second.

With cold dread and helplessness as they were stranded thirty three centuries apart, with Mickey asking her if she could fly the TARDIS back to 18th century France.

With fierce determination when he'd fallen into the Pit.

With crushing pain that she'd felt at Bad Wolf Bay; the first and second time.

But that was the Doctor. Not John.

The Doctor took her away on adventures, but John made life into the greatest adventure.

John lay on his back on wet sand and let her listen to his single beating heart.

John curled his toes over her ankle when he was asleep, rough calluses from all that _running_.

John took his tea piping hot with no milk.

John played aliens with little Tony, chasing him around Torchwood with a waste paper basket on his head.

John made love to her gently, with passionate kisses and heated touches and oh, oh, _oh_.'

* * *

Rose had lost her universe when she was thrown into Pete's world, but John had lost the life he thought he lived. He wasn't a Time Lord, but he remembered being one.

John sat on the roof of Torchwood overlooking London, zeppelins and all, and stared until Rose tucked herself under his arm and he sighed into her hair.

John did the same for her when she stared at the white wall.

They healed each other between the sheets of the bridal bed, but it still wasn't enough to hold his cells together.

* * *

As Earth's foremost expert on alien activities, it's no wonder Rose has her work cut out for her. She takes missions to scope crash sites. She brokers peace treaties. She overseas the reverse engineering of alien technology.

All the same as she's done for many years. The only difference is now she doesn't work like she's got nothing to lose.

* * *

A man holds the elevator doors for her.

* * *

She returns home one day and finds an object in her (_their_) bedroom. No one knows where it comes from, no one admits to placing it there. Someone had passed multimillion pounds worth of security, ignored priceless antiques on the walls and placed an object of painted wood and ornately carved design at the foot of her bed.

The white crib looms like a monster and she almost screams and runs.

* * *

There's a man at the coffee shop who stands two behind her in the queue. He leaves without ordering.

* * *

They don't destroy the crib, but they do move it into the attic.

'Is this carved from a single piece of wood?' Mickey asks as he lifts it into the hall.

'Can't be.' Pete dismisses. 'It's too intricate.'

'It's cut against the grain.' Jake notes, holding the end still inside her room.

Rose clamps her hands over her ears.

* * *

Rose stands naked in front of her mirror, holding her stomach and critically analysing her body, finding any minute change and fussing over it for ten minutes.

She comes to the conclusion that if even she can't see, there's no point telling her parents yet.

* * *

_Abortion_, they suggest (demand), _the foetus has developmental problems_ (always "foetus", never "child") _It may die_.

What the hell kind of option is that? There's the possibility of death so let's jump the proverbial gun and kill it now?

She can't. There's a life growing inside her and at 8 weeks already has a mouth and a tongue and is _moving_ and she just can't. It's not just because the tiny child is the last piece of John left in this universe. It's not just because beating astronomical odds seems to be hardwired into the genetics of both parents.

It's because there's a life inside her, and she can't even find the blob on the ultrasound but she's already prepared to protect her child, no matter how they're born, no matter the cost.

* * *

Rose Tyler isn't a fool. She knows there's a man watching her. She keeps catching glimpses of a man out of the corner of her eye.

One day she's getting into her car and sees that same man again. He's got one hand on the doorhandle of a black car, all sleek lines and polished chrome, while the other hand slides a key into the lock.

She feels the weight of his gaze on her abdomen and she glances down for the fifth time that day to check if she's showing. She isn't, but when she looks back up, he's no longer standing by the car and through the windscreen; the car itself is completely empty.

* * *

She sees him again on the street, leaning against a lamppost and only now does she register that he's been wearing exactly the same outfit every damn time she's seen him. His eyes lock on hers and she hasn't seen that many emotions cross so strongly across a handsome face since messy brown hair and expressive, honest eyes.

Finally his eyes settle on fear and he disappears into the nearest building –a pub. For some reason, when she slips inside, it takes her a long moment to find him hunched over at the bar with his back to the door.

Without hesitation Rose slides onto the stool next to him and orders a finger of scotch on the rocks. He looks horrified and stammers at the bartenders.

'That's for me. She'll have a cranberry juice.'

Rose nods in satisfaction and turns all attention to the strange man beside her.

'Who are you and how the hell do you know I'm pregnant?'

* * *

_**Ha! Bet you weren't expecting an update on this story any time soon! Well... neither did I, but that's beside the point. I love pushing this style of writing and this story!**_

_**So what do you guys think? Confused? Intrigued? Who is the man? Do you want to see more? Please review!**_


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

'Who are you and how the hell do you know I'm pregnant?'

He looks shocked, then concerned and finally settles in conflicted, staring at the empty space between his hands on the bar until it is filled with a glass tumbler.

'I just know.' He tells his scotch.

Rose just stares at him. 'Well that was specific.'

The man looks straight forward, eyes set on the selection of alcohols and Rose examines his profile. The irritation of being watched makes the man slap his hands against the bar and turn to her.

'What?'

Rose just smirks at him. 'Annoying, isn't it?'

'I was just keeping an eye on you.' His eyes flick quickly to her abdomen and then search her face.

'Why?'

His eyes track all across her face, studying her with an intensity that should put her on edge if she wasn't so used to that kind of gaze already.

'Have you ever heard of a phantom itch?'

The words are so enunciated and unexpected that Rose just blinks. 'A what?'

'A phantom itch. All it takes is just the suggestion, someone just talking about an itch. Then you feel it crawling along your skin, suddenly you can't stop scratching.'

The skin behind Rose's ear is tingling and demanding attention. She brushes aside a few wayward strands of blonde hair and digs into the itch with satisfyingly sharp fingernails. 'What about it?'

'You are by far the most infuriating itch I've ever met.'

'Do you make it a habit?' Rose asks.

'What?'

'Stalking your itches?'

'Only when I can't scratch them.'

* * *

He vanishes from the bar before Rose had a chance to interrogate him further. She feels woozy for a moment, places her hands on her stomach, closes her eyes and breathes deeply.

She opens her eyes only moments later and the chair is empty beside her.

Every time she sees him, he's gone within a few minutes. The second time they speak, she manages to say, 'Torchwood specialises in the discovery and neutralisation of alien threats.'

'I know.' He answers.

They are at a park this time. Children run past all bundled up in parkers and beanies.

'Then why are you here?' Rose asks.

He picks a slinter of wood from the bench and rolls it between his fingers.

'Some say that itching just damages the pain receptors, that it doesn't actually do anything. You can't classify an itch; it's not quite pain because you react to it differently. Scratching is just a reflex. Primoridal actions.'

'You talk a lot without saying anything.' Rose observes. 'I used to know a man like that.'

He stands sharply and stares at her, his eyes narrowing at her gradually growing belly. Something akin to a sneer crosses his features and he turns and stalks away, his jacket flapping in the brisk wind.

* * *

'You're a Time Lord.' She says, the next time they meet.

A parody of a smile spreads across his handsome face. 'Then you already know too much.' With his teeth bared like that, he looks like a shark. 'How do you know that? Earth wasn't involved in the Time War, you shouldn't know that.'

'I know all about the Fall of Arcadia and the Dalek Emperor and the cult of Skaro.

'Stop it.'

'I know how the Time War devastated your home world and your people.'

'I said, stop.'

'And I just have one question for you.' Rose looks him in the eye. 'Where were you? Where were you when the stars were going out?'

The man looks away. 'Running.'

'That's not good enough.'

'I never was.'

* * *

By some grand sense of irony, the baby decides that no, Rose will not be eating chips for the next few months. There are no bizarre cravings, only the smell of chips that makes her queasy.

She'd feel more upset if the life inside her hadn't already made her more sensitive to Johns smell still clinging to the blue suit in the cupboard.

* * *

'I don't understand you.' He says harshly to her one day, accusing, like it's all her fault he is confused.

He leans in close where she's sitting on the park bench, placing both hands on the backrest on either side of her head, as if staring long enough would force the answers to leap from her mind.

'Sometimes I don't understand me either.' Rose says dryly.

He's trying to intimidate her. He does have a formidable power behind his actions, but Rose has faced down nightmares far more frightening than a man in a suit.

'You reek of background radiation, but it's not a brand I've come across before. There's something… something of the Vortex about you.' He jerks his head at her swollen stomach and sneers. 'And that child, it's not quite human, and not quite Time Lord.' His face is so close to hers now, warm breath ghosting over her skin. 'Why can't I scratch you, Rose Tyler?'

He raises a hand and Rose tenses on instinct, but the man just trails it down over her heart.

His hand lands on her stomach and the baby kicks like it's disgusted.

* * *

She sees the man more and more as her belly grows. In parks and restaurants and once on the rooftop of Canary Wharf. She wonders why she puts up with him without pressing for more answers, about the Time Lords in this universe, how he knew her, who he is. He wonders why she's still breathing.

Occasionally she'll offer to share her salad or milkshake or whatever she's munching on at the time. He will always sneer and continue watching the crowd.

And always his fingers keep a rhythm.

_Tap, tap, tap, tap._

_Tap, tap, tap, tap._

* * *

**Please review! Tell me what you think!**


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